In this nineteenth installment of the ongoing live series with Wendy Nash inquiring into meditation practice on and off the cushion we plan to explore the ins and outs, ups and downs, and pros and cons of augmented meditation methods, mostly from an outsiders perspective — things like: brain wave binaural beats, isochronic tones, using specific (chakra) frequencies, lucid dreaming devices, sensory deprivation tanks, biofeedback devices, gongs, singing and crystal bowls, Native American flutes, tuning forks, didgeridoo, hand pan drums, music in general and more.
(Ways to) join these Q & A’s when they happen live:
- via downloading the free Wisdom app in your app store or via: https://wisdom.audio where I’m @integratingpresence or https://joinwisdom.audio/integratingpresence
- watch on my YouTube channel
*There’s naturally an ongoing open call for meditation (related) questions for the (roughly) monthly “Meditation Q & A” either by the various social media means listed; integratingpresence[at]protonmail.com or just showing to type/ask live.*
Background
Regular, current and past visitors to Integrating Presence may recall the monthly series “Ask Us Anything” I did with Denny K Miu from August 2020 until January 2022 — partially including and continuing on with Lydia Grace as co-host for awhile until March 2022.
For a few months thereafter I did various Insight Timer live events exploring potential new directions and/or a continuation of the Ask Us Anything format while weaving in other related teachings to these events.
Then, after chats with meditation coach Wendy Nash, it became clear to start a new collaboration similar to “Ask Us Anything” simply and clearly called “Meditation Q & A” especially due to the original intent of the Ask Us Anything’s being “discussions about meditation and related topics.”
Past chats with Wendy:
Audio: An Integrating Presence Meditation at Mary’s House of Healing September 2, 2020
Or listen via Insight Timer (app or website)
The raw unedited YouTube transcription of this podcast:
this is Josh of integrating presence and today I’m back again with the lovely Wendy Nash Wendy how’s it going yeah I’m
on Gabby Gabby country in Queensland and it’s been raining here today actually
it’s been raining for ages and ages and ages and it’s even got to the point now where people go whoops uh where it’s
even got to the point where people go I don’t want ra rain because we usually love rain so um yeah that’s pretty
unusual then huh I mean yes pretty wild uh of course this is Denmark here so
it’s kind of wet all the time almost uh we it’s a little rain this morning too
so it’s uh even the word dens uh is is similar to dank which is what means like
unagreeable um dampness so anyway it’s it’s it’s it’s okay though it’s not
really that unagreeable all right so today is um augmented meditation methods
and this is like our 19th one I think and so this was spurred by when we did
meditation spaces I showed this chair and I think it’s kind of like you sit in
it and it folds over you and then it plays some kind of sound and light and
things like this yeah right and I’ll just say right up front here um I’ll
give a disclaimer because obviously I’m going to be biased towards uh not having
a lot of extra things going on in meditation but we’ll explore this anyway
um and I haven’t done a lot of research on this I did a little bit for the description and maybe I’ll just uh read
the description but um yeah so this is not to just know that my comments are
are merely my own they’re not really based on a lot of Empirical research you
know so I invite people to come on here and tell me uh why I’m wrong why this
this this should be part of a meditation practice more often than not and uh
hopefully I mean this is just opinions this is not factual evidence so please don’t sue
me so I I have a a podcast that I do about transportation in my town and we
say that we are here to entertain and inform we are not giving any legal advice opinion or recommendation for
Action very yes that is very official legally legal sounding there and uh yeah
so that that sounds good well put Wendy all right so here’s what
I have I I have for this description in this 19th installment of our ongoing um
live series with Wendy Nash inquiring into the meditation practice on and off the cushion we plan to explore the ins and outs ups and downs and pros and cons
of augmented meditation methods mostly from an outp Outsiders perspective
things like brainwave binaural beats isoc ionic tones using specific chakra
frequencies lucid dreaming devices sensory deprivation tanks biof feedback
devices and then things like gongs singing singing and Crystal bowls native american flutes tuning Forks diger Ado
if I’m saying that right handpan drums music in general and more okay so where to start with all
that I think I want to start with a digy do first up okay so M Wendy is Australian if you
haven’t figured that out right now yeah so she should immediately be an expert right I
mean or a you do I did hear some music I think it was uh one of the one of the
alternative uh what do you call it um companies that have a lot of recordings
of big teachers and they had this I think it was the shakah Hai flute and
diery do and my partner at that time was Australian and
we both went this is wrong so it was we we’re used to certain sounds hearing so
the dig my understanding is that that’s only supposed to be played by men
apparently if women play it it can interfere with their fertility processes so I don’t know what that is but just to
say that it is um an instrument that’s quite complicated to play and anyway um
but it’s it is something that has some Aboriginal communities use not all of
them in Australia it’s my understanding I’m very lacking in knowledge that’s my
understanding um so yeah it’s something to be treated with respect and and
thought that it is a cultural It’s associated with a cultural instrument so
just putting that up the dig the Dig I I didn’t know is is shorten to and I love
the the British too they shorten things like session it’s a sesh um you know not
vegetable in the states it’s kind of cute to say veggies but it’s really efficient there it’s just veg so yeah uh
but no this this this instrument sounds amazing when I hear it on recordings and whatnot I mean it’s just it’s almost
like wait a second it’s one of those things like okay I I know what music sounds like and what sound’s supposed to
sound like and it almost sounds kind of other worldly if if I mean it just really has
a very unique sound it’s not like a stringed instrument where you could say oh that sounds like a such and such you
know or even guitars they can sound like other stringed instruments but a diger Ado I don’t I don’t think it has much of
a it’s kind of Peerless I I don’t know what I’ll compare it to but yeah I guess
I grew up with it so for me it’s just yeah that’s just what it it is the Dig
you know so yeah yeah now Wendy before we get into this more didn’t you go on a
retreat lately tomorrow tomorrow oh you go that’s right okay it’s tomorrow you
go you go into Retreat okay so maybe we’ll talk about that later on or whatnot now let’s just talk about more
musical things I want to ask Wendy have have you used any kind of musical instruments or sound in in meditation or
been like to a sound bath or a gong bath or things like this or played like a
singing ball do you know any of these things yeah no the only thing I know
about the Tibetan uh singing balls is that I when I was at University we had I
did a course on Buddhism in the Contemporary world and it talked about the phenomenon of the singing Bells but
Tibetans don’t do that with them that’s my understanding this is a western thing that has been infiltrated into that so
this is one of those things that is sort of not really tobon is my understanding
but again lacking in knowledge always very thin on the knowledge we are here to entertain and inform and if we’re
wrong let us know I love that I love being wrong so and I’m I’m not really a
music person so I find it really um I find music a lot of the time makes me
quite jingled I’m a bit unusual in that regard I’m not a much of a music person
well I I I will just uh mention my thing on this and uh I want to reiterate the
Tibetan singing Because I’ve watched several or maybe a handful of uh Tibetan documentaries here recently and I did
not see any of them playing a singing bowl you know and I have a hand hammered
one uh that’s supposedly an antique one from um Tibet and it’s okay but I don’t
sit there and play it really a lot I will use it when I do meditations like on um insight timer live I’ll use it as
a bell hit it you know because it has it has a nice resonant sound now some people like to use these sounds to focus
on like um instead of the breath as an object they will just listen to the sound being played right or they’ll have
several of them now I have been to sound baths too where someone plays like a variety of these things they also have
Crystal bowls which are these bigger bowls and with those it’s an interesting phenomena when they spin around this
it’s almost like a stereoscopic effect so if you’re laying down it almost seems like the the sound is moving around the
room too so it’s this really interesting effect um now the reason I don’t do the
things like this in my uh daily practice is because I like it’s hard to be still
and let the M mind um kind of calm on its own it’s kind of a more distraction
to subtler and subtle layers and now I can can be good for some people I feel if they just have such a stressful life
to just divert their mind from their habitual patterns and sound is really
very present and kind of easily distinguishable and there’s something about a clear bright resonance sound too
that does something with the mind now for music for me when my 20s that was my
whole life I mean I listen to all kinds of music I would search out rare magazines and this is the times of lime
wire and Napster all this stuff when I was downloading music I shouldn’t have been downloading right and um don’t do
that anymore and but today when I hear some of these pop
songs oh I just grown because uh some of the things I don’t listen to much music
with lyrics anymore they’ll stay in my mind like maybe a week afterwards cuz I’ve heard these songs hundreds and
hundreds of times there’s been emotional investment and I just kind of groan when I hear a lot of these uh songs and
sometimes they’ll stick in my head so I realize how this earworm phenomena how actually this could be detrimental to
some people I know some people get a lot of relief but after meditation practice I know for me it’s just too gross and
syrupy and like um emotionally manipulative some of these songs you
know um I can go on and I don’t want to badmouth a lot of music because I still listen to some more int instrumental or
without lyrics but I mean lyrics can be really popular in songs especially when they’ve been pumped into the collective
over and over and over again so yes uh so just in then there’s this phase in meditation that a lot of people talk
about where a just song from nowhere will pop into their mind and they’ll see they’ll just start hearing it or singing
it and they can’t get out of their mind and it’ll be in there for quite a long time so that’s a quite common phenomena
uh during meditation so yeah so I actually read a book on
memorization it’s a great book ‘s Australian she did a PhD she wondered why Aboriginal people had such
incredible memories and so she did her whole PhD on memorization because she
had a bad memory like so many of us do and actually the way that what she said
is it’s so disappointing that we are raised with these songs you know I love you woo woo woo when this
incredible mechanism of the mind for memorization through Melody is and song
This is actually what it’s for and we just Chuck it out the window and we go I love you woo woo woo and it’s just such
a loss we are not the better off for it you know as you say it’s an earworm so
if that was a useful information if you were doing a story about the weather and
the animals and the birds and the the seasons and what was important to
remember that earworm would be amazing you would always be able to remember it
but the fact that it’s not that but but we are digressing we are not talking about meditation well well in in a way
we are all tie it back with your point here that the the Buddha sutas they use
the if you if you read some of these original sutas that’s been translated from ply the Buddha often what’s said to
be the Buddha’s words is often spoken in refrain a lot of things are repeated over and over and over again because of
that’s how people remember this was an oral tradition and so it was easier to remember teachings if there was a
refrain and things repeated mantras mantras are made to be repeated over and
over and over and there’s a power in the sound now I don’t know if that would be considered augmented um but I I don’t
know this the whole notion of language we did a show on language too a couple shows on language it’s it is a really a
fascinating thing but it’s repeated in the polyc Canon so much to the point that it says dot dot dot and so they
just leave it out even the translators they won’t they’ll just put dot dot dot because a lot of things repeated would
just be bigger and bigger and bigger so yeah all right well where do
we want to take this next I I’m wondering about I I’m curious to see if um if if Wendy’s even heard of some of
these other methods I am just barely familiar with some of them by name and I don’t even know if I can give a decent
definition of some of these things so just run through some of them again because the Dig obviously I was curious
about I’m going that’s that’s that’s a that’s something else stuff that’s not spiritual that’s just I mean it is
spiritual for Aboriginal people but it just feels like yeah weird and I mean
it’s a musical instrument a lot of original people do play it with like guitars rock guitars that sort of stuff
so I’m used to that sure now this uh well since we’re on music we might as well just finish this up with these
instruments uh these handpan drums have you seen these so kind of like hippie
guys will yeah they s go ahead yeah a friend of mine plays it and he used to
he used to play it so much that then then he played it on a Sunday morning and the neighbor across the across the
road said you can play any other time not Sunday morning
enough he’s like but it’s a great sound so he was been shocked that anyone didn’t like it laying down the law yeah
she’s just like no enough no they they do have a really unique sound very vibrant resonant um
yeah brightness and uh they’re fun to listen to also some of the people that
play it get kind of made fun of now or cliche there’s a kind of a cliche around
the personality type that plays it but you know whatever I mean it’s it’s it’s it’s bright and uplifting it’s not like
this ORS so there’s there’s some kind of a more brightening Consciousness raising
or development effect compared to just you know thoughtless mindless what what
is the the thing they do in R&B now with the um the um the when they VOC vorder
or something where they tweak the vocals and you can’t even really it sounds like a robot basically uh so a lot of the
natural R&B singing is just all through that computer stuff yeah the I I mean
it’s interesting I didn’t know about the hand Pan um drum so but you know this
this person I know he’s completely lovely he’s an absolutely oh yeah absolutely people I’ve met they are
Nightfall it’s a shame that there’s a cliche around some people like that now because of that but yeah no that’s right
I and I want to I want to reiterate that too the the the folks that I know that play it to are just absolutely wonderful
individuals there’s always going to be cliches about everybody like you know people who sit in the corner in the
Lotus position and just and there is truth to that you know
it’s like oh yeah there is a joke about somebody told me a joke can I say a Buddhist joke please yes hopefully I can
use it later too yeah yeah so the there’s these two old guys and uh one of
them says Ah so how’s how’s your son you know he’s un you know how’s he going and he’s going you know what happened about
his unemployment is like ah well he’s he’s you know decided to do this meditation thing at least he’s you know
not sitting around doing nothing that’s great
right that old thing yeah just don’t do something sit there you know yeah
exactly but I love the idea of being unemployed and yeah don’t do anything exactly
yeah I tell people sometimes well like what is the most um for someone who can accomplish anything in life at you know
that that you know money’s not a problem they can achieve everything they set their mind to what’s the ultimate
achievement then is sitting there doing nothing yeah exactly that har a thing
yeah so all right okay we’ve got gongs now these are really um I think some of
the Eastern Traditions use gongs but I’ve been to this sound bath in uh it’s
a Buckminster Fuller Dome and people would lay down on yoga mats and the the
practitioner would just kind of play the gong I think she had singing balls too but it’s it’s another real interesting
uh sound usually I don’t know like it symbolizes some kind of um significant event going on if someone
hits a Gong right it’s supposed to Mark something significant usually uh there
was even an old TV show called The Gong Show and I don’t even remember what that was about but um maybe that was an
American thing yeah I think what that was is you did a skit or a joke and then when somebody decided that was enough or
they didn’t want to stop they just pressed it on I think that’s what it was I’m sure we had it here um just as you
were saying that I was thinking all right so I think it goes back to the question about what is meditation what
are we doing what’s the purpose yes is it to get enlightened whatever that
means is it to have a bliss or unique particular
experience is it to learn to do
to be different to to transform the mind to train the mind to be more sincere so
this is kind of where I’m a little bit I know we haven’t gotten into so many of the techniques here yeah I was thinking
about the binaural beats I actually did a little bit of that when I was at University I’m not sure it did anything
but I I I’m a great believer in the placebo effect I think the placebo
effect is the most effective form of medication there is there’s no two ways
about that and it’s so cheap you can do it you just need to think it’s going to
work and I just think what is wrong with thinking that that is going to work I
think there’s a point where you have you don’t want to be stupid because some people think that it works and then it
really doesn’t they’re actually in denial but but hey if it
give it a go I think that’s and I think a lot of this stuff and some people do have very resonant minds and bodies with
particular things so sound for some people is huge and they find it their
bodies are uplifted through this experience and then for other
people yeah so I think that’s all really good the the one where you put the I
don’t know whatever it is on your head to have particular brain waves activated
to enter a s sort of I guess basically uh a psychedelic state but
without the Psychedelic drugs and then I go well is that is that
really changing who you are or are you just going is the ego just going to come
in and claim it as being I’m now enlightened because I’ve had a you know a 5 minute experience or whatever it is
and I’ve seen something and that’s always my way about this stuff how much
is it actually transforming the Mind Your Capacity to respond differently to
what arises as opposed to thinking you’re enlightened and therefore I know
how to respond it’s a different thing so many good points here Wendy wow
um so sound in general yes some people it’s so there’s this notion of um kind
of dis Discord and Harmony there’s so many sounds and events in our lives that
cause discordance and disharmony and when somebody sits and listens to something a little bit more harmonious a
little bit more in balance and can feel the vibrations in the body sometimes that can align to kind of more skillful
and wholesome States or give a reference point or say how wow you know I’ve had
this disharmony and discordance in my life but now I’m I’m hearing this and I’m feeling this and I’m aligning with
this instead and so it can give some kind of inspiration or reference point but I think the fundamental thing here
that you you mentioned is you know why why do we do this you know what is the point of all this and I agree with
almost all of that and it should be to train the mind you know it train the mind for what well it should be in
service to our long-term uh benefit and well-being and for that of others and
stress a long term and I would also say to start uh seeing and knowing things as they actually are and not necessarily
how we want them to be and how’s the best way to go about all that you know and how does that trickle into our
everyday lives and uh on and off the cushion right um now you talked about
the uh the binaural beats and my experience with that is it’s it’s it’s
really interesting I I also want to know or say for people that have kind of
these thrill seeking or dependencies too so if they get if they get really
habitually trained to using these things then they don’t really know how to meditate without them or you know they
become maybe dependent on them or maybe it colors I don’t know for sure I’m just speculating here colors the mind in a
way that or uh puts uh forms or shapes the mind in a way that may may take time
time to undo and to go into something that’s not dependent on an external
Source I’ve tried these two and I’ve I’ve have varying degrees of effect with
them now the the other thing um that Wendy mentioned here was this
notion of peak experience kind of things just doing this to have an experience and I I’m of two camps on this one I
think we some people need these Peak experiences in order to know that there
there’s something more than okay I’m just going to sit and follow my breath what’s the big deal with that I get bored disinterested you know that’s it’s
not doing anything for me um yeah yeah yes and no maybe but if someone has a
peak experience then they could say well there is more to this than I thought the TR the problem comes and we’ve talked
about this before is when somebody chases those Peak experiences or that’s all it’s about they’re trying to
recreate them they’ll go to an iow Wasa to get a retreat to do this they’ll they’ll go try some extreme sport you
know go try um extreme technique you
know or yeah just different Altered States just for the fact of of having an
experience okay so I like this balance of not trying to recreate it or chase
Peak experiences but use them as a reinforcement and and inspiration to
um to to know that the mind is a really amazing mysterious thing and uh there’s
a lot of potential we have and how are we going to do that in the most beneficial way for us and those around
us and stay inspired and um and integrate those experiences too now I’m
forgetting the other things you said Wendy but I’ve blabbed long enough on this one and I see if you have any more
thoughts on this yeah I mean I guess it does just
and the other thing that I that really strikes me about the conversation is so you and I both follow Buddhism which is
generally known as the Dharma other or the teachings it’s a particular strand
it’s a religion uh that is um a particular person who had some
very interesting insights there’ve been a whole lot of people disciples at the
time and since who’ve and who’ve had their own experiences and who’ve
understood the text in a particular way they’ve been cultural influences of the different countries where that has come
into so we’re talking about Buddhist Meditation and in Buddhist Meditation I
don’t really think any of that happens so this is more in the I don’t know what
else would you call it spiritual meditation or like Kiran for instance I
think that’s a Hindu tradition isn’t it and and that’s great and I don’t have any qu about that I don’t know anything
about it but uh people people find it very beneficial people find dance very
beneficial but this you and I are both Buddhist and so not not to say that one
is any better or the other is any whatever I mean obviously I think that
for me Buddhism is the one that works that’s why I do it and I presume it’s
the same for you so I guess part I I guess I sort of want to put on the table
that if we’re talking Buddhist Meditation in the narrow understanding
that I have it in a western Traditions so there are lots of things in Tibetan
Buddhism that go on that have a sort of a Heritage in the burn um pre-buddhist
life culture of those people and they’ve also I read that in was it Cambodia they had a lot
of those different kind of practices too but that’s not necessarily what
we’re talking about with the binaural beats or the or the gongs or the bells
or the whistles and the I mean I’m bit fous there but that’s something slightly different
I guess yeah the these are really good points and I just want to make a couple
clarifications that I actually wouldn’t consider myself a Buddhist however it might may as well be because I study and
practice it quite a bit you know I’ve been to monasteries I have a daily sitting practice and I do really want to
say this ISM putting an ism on Buddhism to me it does it a disservice to me I
look at it as here’s a here’s a man here’s a guy said hetha Goa right and
there’s another distinction he was human but then after his um um what’s called
Full Awakening and attainment of buddhahood he he would no longer fit into these categories of any kind of
being whatsoever he was asked you know what are you and he basically said well I’m awake they asked are you a human are
you a DVA are you a you know surra Brahman what are you you know he said
well I’m I’m I’m awake that’s what the title Buddha means so it’s it’s really kind of unfathomable to us still on this
path and I will agree with Wendy this especially in the western Buddhist tradition and there’s not a lot of
emphasis on Peak experiences absolutely in fact they’re can see usually seen as
a hindrance however these things do can and do spontaneously arise in meditation
in certain times under certain conditions and you know so but the emphasis is not to put a big emphasis on
them they’re just you know Another Empty phenomenon going on I but I think it it
can do a disservice to completely write them off and have no significance whatsoever but there’s also the bigger
danger of giving them too much significance like I was just talking about now the the the Buddhist I mean
the Tibetan thing is really interesting too because I think they do I don’t know Wendy knows more about Tibetan Buddhism
than I do but there’s like visualization practices and deity practices you know the Mandola thing I think some um even
have you know communication with certain deities deini I mean it it all depends there’s there’s there’s secret I mean
there’s inner teachings and there’s secret teachings and a lot of them aren’t really that that public so you know I don’t know much about this I just
know if if anything that would be the the tradition within Buddhism that would be more toward uh towards this type of
thing [Music] you yeah I mean I think
that I think it’s good to keep an open mind and to try
it but I I do think you know I have I
meet people and they go oh my my kind of Med meditation is taking the dog for a walk or reading a book and there is a
conflation between meditation as a form of contemplation a
form of relaxation and a form of Mind training and probably as
a but there is a you know I’m qu that’s how I quiet my mind I go running so this
is so I think there’s a bit of confusion about well what are we talking about with meditation and why are those uh
tools useful for some people exactly and this goes into um a
bigger question of this three-part thing of um Sila samadi PA Sila ethics and
then samade is the meditation training and then PA wisdom so I think a lot of
times when we just talk just about meditation these other key ingredients are kind of left out right and training
the mind for what training the mind for um our our benefit in the in the our
welfare and that of others like I I said and yeah and for to seeing clearly clear
seeeing and seeing things for how they actually are because most people live in a story about reality they don’t
actually live in reality I would say you know um and then okay well I think let’s
if we want to we can go on to a couple of these other um things that I have here and I think one of the ones uh
isochronic tones this one I’m not even sure what the heck that is I found that
and I think it’s similar to binaural beats but I want to say maybe it’s like
um certain tones I hear Wendy possibly looking that up yeah I am it was a bit nauy sorry
about that people do that and while you’re doing that go ahead but I think it’s a look it says deep theater
meditation 5.5 Herz isochronic tones I think it might be the B oral beats that
same kind of style and I think there’s value to that and if you don’t have time
say you’re you’re studying for an exam and you just need to cram you need to
prepare that’s how it is something like that I go okay go for it is it going to
transform your mind is it going to say You’re really slowly with life and
practice over the decades you’ll become a more chilled person I don’t know I
mean I could be wrong about that but I I sense that actually it just becomes
another form of dependence as you said so that’s the only thing I would say
yeah this is fascinating these um the certain types of brain waves right in certain like Alpha State most people
operate in beta from what I understand Alpha is kind of more of the relaxed and
focused State then you get into dreaming States uh I think deep dreamless sleep
might be where Delta gets more activated um Theta is usually um this mind State
that’s kind of healing in a lot of I don’t know phenomena happen and a lot of
interesting things happen in Theta I think and what am I missing here I think that this is says this which one did it
say this state was in was it in Theta Theta yeah like a lot of um like oh I
don’t know I don’t want to say it I I don’t want to say too much but this also goes into what Wendy mentioned while ago
and I forgot this this things these electrodes you put on your head and I know this is they do egg and this is how
they read brain waves and I want to say this is how neuro feedback is done so if
I’m getting this right I should talk to a psychologist friend of mine who I just interviewed recently on lucid dreaming
by the way and that’ll be coming out in a month or so and uh but he used to work
with neuro feedback devices and I forget exactly but I think what you could do is you could do meditation or meditated
techniques in real time and they’ll put uh your brain waves on the screen and
then you can actually see what you focus on or how your meditation it’s like um
feedback in real time but for feedback yeah yeah so I don’t is that how it
works but for me I was like well that seems a little weird because you can’t I could at least I don’t think I could go
as deep uh if I’m if I’m looking at my um a technological representation of
what’s going on to me that in itself is kind of distracting I mean I get the idea of how it can provide feedback but
if we’re really attuned internally we’re getting feedback moment to moment on
what’s happening in our experience you know so I don’t know I I I could see the kind of the pros and cons to it they
also put they’ve also put some of these monks and mrri machines and you know
they’ve get these patterns of certain areas of the brain lighting up and if you know I I I write it off a little bit
but you know it’s it’s interesting and we know certain areas of the brain are responsible for certain things but we
also know right that certain people that are classified a certain way certain patterns in their brain will be
completely different but then we’ll also have um similar MRI uh results and uh these
people can be completely uh classified as as different things or different levels and things like this we’ve get
this case of uh was it Stephen Pinkard where this guy was missing so much brain matter and you would think that he would
not be even be able to live or have any kind of life but he had a normal IQ so I
mean cons that’s a whole another thing Consciousness I don’t think works the way a lot of people um think it does and
how the brain interacts with this but so I think that’s yeah yeah I I was just
you know we don’t know much at all and we make these huge assumptions and
sweeping statements and I you know I think one of my favorite sayings is it
never ceases is to amaze me how determined I am to think that I am right given how frequently I actually find out
that I am wrong and I’m wrong all day every day I’m think a call is going to be happen or somebody’s going to reply
in a positive or A negative or I’ll get this email or I’ll get that whatever and none of it happens like that none of it
happens as I plan and yet I’m so determined to go this is what it is and it’s like nuts hey let’s talk about
lucid dreaming okay I want to Echo that point though that these these expectation and
assumptions we have are really I mean um this is a huge area of practice too
because I will have expectations assumption having an expectation is a setup for disaster in most cases for me
because e but even if it gets met that’s great but then is that really going to do it for me if I get that expectation
yes I finally arrive that’s really going to do it now forever no I just set the next expectation and most of the times
they don’t get met what I find even more interesting is that um how many
expectations I have that are unconscious I just have certain assumptions and expectations that are running that I
don’t even realize it until they get shattered and then I’m like wow okay I I had I had that expectation I didn’t
wasn’t even conscious of it so you have to be um give cut myself a break too and
also Wendy yes it’s it’s very humbling to know that we we know very little and
but we at least know that much so if we know anything we know that and I I just
maybe this is too much of a tangent but in our experience at least what I understand now there’s if you boil down
experience there’s basically two things going on what’s being known and the
knowing so by knowing I mean not a this is a definitive absolute certainty what
I mean is okay I’m observing phenomenon and I know of that particular like right
now I I know that I’m talking right there’s that knowing of talking or what we call talking and uh and the phenomena
itself I’m looking at a screen with Wendy that’s what’s being known and there’s the knowing that that’s
happening usually we focus on what’s being known and not the faculty of
actually knowing it so that’s not what Wendy was talking about I know but but I
will just this raw be erience yeah I think let’s pick that one up because as you were saying that I was thinking I
want to unpack that but today that’s not what we’re doing so let’s do that so uh
let’s dreaming okay yeah but we would just so note to self make sure we come
back to it which is the knowah and the knowing all let’s come back to that in one of our meditation class meditation
conversations oh yes let’s let’s put that CU we don’t have um the next one we’re going to do is um oh dang it now I
forgot I’ve got it oh thinking in emotions so we’re going to go to the basics of thinking in emotions and so
then maybe the one after that we’ll do knowing and what’s being known or however we would title
it okay lucid dreaming Wendy have you had lucid dreams do you no I’m rubbish
I’m rubbish I I’m like rubbish on this stuff but I loved it I’ve read the book um dream yoga by Andrew hollich so he
follows in the Tibetan tradition and he’s a huge practitioner it’s a great book and I tried what he did and nothing
happened so I’m just like rubbish and then a couple of months ago some friends
came over and they don’t meditate they don’t do any of this and they’re going oh yeah this is how I fly and then the
other one’s going oh I fly like this and I was going that’s not fair but but and
then I said well you can actually apparently work through all your you can do a ton of therapy you can meet people
I I met a woman who um this is when I was in London and she had spent the
first 13 years of her life here and in in Sydney and I said would you go
back and she said well I kind of just flew there so I had to look around and
I’ve seen it now so no I don’t need to go back there I’m like jealous as all hell you know I would love to be able to
do that that one’s one of those ones I go all right put me or wire me up give me the drugs whatever I want to know
what that’s like but I’ve got these friends and they’re not at all like that one of them he just gets this Vibe he
goes to the gate where he when he was a child growing up or where they used to live and he just went there’s a presence
there’s an evil evil presence at this gate and he had this real sense about it
and the dog was like real low like evil presence
growl and then yeah so different people have these abilities but I think lucid
dreaming dream yoga super jealous if you’ve had that experience I don’t know
do I want to talk to you ever again I know I don’t want to get too much into
but so wait your friend is that was in a dream they visited a gate where they they used to live or tell me that again
no that was me being distracted in different ways so these two these two couples came over and two like the
husband in one and the wife in the other they both um used to just have this
ability to loose a dream and they would go flying astral astral traveling and
they would go traveling everywhere and they were comparing notes on their technique on their like paddling
techniques and then the husband said that his experience not with I guess I
guess it was sort of an alternative weirdo non I don’t know Western solid
experience like we talking about ghosts we were talking about all sorts of things and he said when they had a a
farm in South Africa and at this one gate the hairs on the back of his neck
would always rise and one time the wife went oh this
is weird feeling here and just cold
so just I guess there are other other ways of seeing the world and being in
the world and I guess that’s a correlation well absolutely you know we we know that and we talked about this
before that our eyesight is only within a certain frequency range and there’s
all kinds of things outside of our our actual vision and same way with sound
and you know we have all kinds of invisible things all around us like this Wi-Fi connection you know of course we
can’t see it but it’s we know it’s working you know radio waves yada yada but for the lucid dreaming I will say
when I when I was doing more of um this type of stuff I would fly feet first that was weird usually you show Superman
like flying like this but my feet were going first like this so and other times you float right off
the ground just like you’re standing upright but you’re just about this far off almost like a vampire and then you would go forward like this but this okay
so it all depends on what how did you get there how did you all right how did you get there yeah you got to be really
weird so Winnie this is a training just like anything else um my friend I don’t
do much of this anymore and don’t even have much recall but I I almost invite you to to to to see the the the talk we
have when we when we um when it airs but it’s a training like anything else now
the Tibetan dream that’s more advanced there’s way more basic training to this and I’ll just give a quick rundown you
know the first thing is start a dream journal so well actually before that you have to really I mean really want it and
put effort into it for these things I mean if you want to train it some people just have the natural ability right and that I get it that’s no fair I would
love to be able to be like master all the Jas immediately like some people seem to have no uh you know effortless
and some of these meditation attainments but it’s it’s a long training for us and it’s how much do you want it you know
how much do you really want to dedicate time and effort or is it just a passing fancy so you know for me I don’t I I
don’t do a lot of it and it doesn’t happen much anymore and I’m not really dedicated to to training it but if it’s
something you want I say go for it full out train train in it and there’s just so many different techniques and reality
testing you’ll have to get into it because it is a whole series of thing that that modern people are doing now
and then I think the the more Advanced and more beneficial stuff would be the
Tibetan dream yoga um dreaming but I don’t know if that’s where it should start I’m not really familiar with that
either but you just look up lucid dreaming techniques and and uh training and that’s how I mean to to make a long
story short without going into a lot of details because I don’t I don’t practice it but there are a lot of different tips
and techniques and and things we can can do in my um my psychologist friend talks all about it because he’s really really
into it and then he even gets into the high strain of going into the astral you know astral traveling and crossing over
into the astral from a lucid dream state I will say that there’s a different degrees of Lucidity though like usually
what happens to me now as soon as I realize I’m Dreaming I wake up so to me it’s more about Awakening than it is
sleeping and dreaming but you know these these experiences are basically there is
no limit in a dream world because there’s no laws in reality you can do whatever you want but at a certain time
when you realize that then it it’s just like that that even can get boring
because you know I don’t know I I don’t know but uh it’s definitely it’s definitely so just realizing usually
what happens to me is I realize that I’m in a dream but I don’t have control over it so I think full Lucidity would be
you’re dreaming you realize you’re dreaming and then you can do whatever you want you can have control over it so
what happens for me though is I either realize I’m dreaming and I can’t do what I want or I wake up so so I haven’t
trained it enough um yeah but uh I think the what else should we say about that
um in context to meditation now this is where the I think it would be really uh
beneficial to to do more meditative practices in the lucid dream state and
that’s what I would be more interested in doing uh meditative practices while locid in a dream now and all the other
thing is some people can actually consciously fall asleep and consciously enter the
dream state consciously know they’re in a dreamless state and then consciously wake up so they’re aware the entire time
they never lose awareness which I think is amazing one of the easier practices to do with this is U being aware of if
it’s an in or an out breath upon Awakening in the morning or whenever you wake up but the more challenging one I
haven’t been able to do yet is know if it’s an in or out breath before I fall asleep
I haven’t been able to do that the one waking up I have you okay there there is this thing about so lucid dreaming I I
think Andrew holl’s stuff is really good if you if if uh anybody watching this is
interested in it that’s definitely the place to go and I did I think it can be
really useful if you’ve had a difficult situation and you want to get some
clarity on it and you have that skill um and it I think you can can also
help with the BOS so the BOS are is training for the death transition of
into unconsciousness and death uh so I think they’re very highly correlated and
I think it’s very useful practice so my hope is that when I you know fully
retire and I just dedicate myself only to practice which I don’t have the
capacity to do at the moment it’s not where I what I want to do but when I’m
approaching a quieter time in my life I would love to get back into the BAU
States inquire into that and you start with lucid dreaming and then you you can
try and catch that moment when you fall asleep when you wake up right at that
thing and you ask yourself am I even drink your day as you go along several
times a day you go am I awake or am I dreaming and this
this is a process to help with going well am I dreaming am I lucid dreaming
so I think in answer to the question about our that’s what they call reality that’s what they call reality testing
yeah what what I think is really interesting about this one is that this is the only one that you and I have
thought have actually I I think spoken about
positively really because it it is about training the mind we we’re both people
who like to train the mind so that’s that’s what we like to do and so perhaps
that’s how we imagine meditation is is about training the mind what do we want
from meditation do we want to feel like yeah that we’re not working
with something or you know that’s that’s what I think I mean your partner your
fiance she’s also really into meditation is she into Buddhist Meditation or does
she do other augmented things no not augmented so much she has her own uh
techniques and practices and energy work and um she actually has past life recall
of um being a monastic in Tibet so it’s pretty wild I mean she’s far beyond my
abilities and things like this so we have been reading though um poac codow
seeing and knowing just because he’s considered a one of the great living meditation Masters so I don’t really
know how to answer that I would say she has her own uh style her own work her own techniques and she’s I would say
very far Advanced on the the inner Plains of reality uh far more than I am
um now this we’ve got a couple extra ones uh here that uh that I haven’t
mentioned yet and one of the things that spurred this is um similar to what
spurred the the idea for this is sensory deprivation tanks and I think we talked briefly about this before what people
call Float tanks and so Wendy have you tried one of these before when I was a
young woman I was probably 22 and I was trying lots of things to
calm myself down and everything and I don’t know what it was so everybody else
talked about how calming it was I did it and now if I did it I think I would be okay but at the time I fell asleep and I
was so freaked out because I actually it used to be that when I would wake up in
the morning until really until I was in my 40s at the moment when I woke up I
would jolt so I fell asleep and then I jolted and I because I didn’t know how long I’d
been asleep I felt Al alone and afraid it triggered some traumatic thing for me
actually so I didn’t enjoy it at all and I’ve been a bit nervous about going back
to it well it’s funny mentioned the jolting because this is something that I’ve experienced I usually get it right
before I fall asleep and then I’ll be jolted awake and so I hear this more and more uh of course my fiance experiences
this sometimes and I’ve talked to plenty of people that that experience this and I I’ll save you my speculation on what
that is and uh why it’s it sucks that that that happened in the float tank um
the one time I did it was in Chicago years ago before I started meditation practice so I might want to do it again
um since meditation but for anyone not familiar you’re put in this you shower off and then I think I went completely
without clothing in into like a or maybe anyway so you put you put in um an Epsom
salt bath so it’s effortless floating and you’re in this uh chamber and I don’t think there I don’t remember
there’s any light whatsoever and I can’t remember exactly how uh I think they showed me
how to get in and out of there and the time I forgot how to do the time so you don’t lose track of time I think there
is options for people to play sound and have lights inside of some of these things I can’t really remember all the
details but I do remember being my body was usually my body is is fairly tense
and I’m in my mind a lot at the time I do remember having a really relaxation
uh effortless relaxation of my body I was able to stay conscious the entire time and my mind did uh calm down and
settle down but I did not fall asleep so I don’t know would would have happened if I if I would have fell asleep and
that’s it’s weird it kind of some people say it recreates like an like an ambic fluid like in the womb perhaps it’s warm
um yeah so it’s it’s really and then I don’t know if anybody’s ever seen the movie Altered States um but really
briefly from what I remember not only were these um quote unquote scientists and mind explorers going into these but
they were taking like LSD on top of it and so what could possibly go wrong right but they were they were on high
amounts of psychedelics and going into this and plus probably other things and let’s just say a lot of interesting
things ensue in that movie it’s an old one from the 70s I can’t or maybe it sounds I was just going what was he
saying Timothy whatever his name is you know and you just go oh man you know I mean there’s a lot of conversation now
about psychedelics and people are very keen on it but just a heads up about psychedelics a friend of mine who’s an
emergency medicine special so he’s in the emergency department and I said what’s the deal cuz he’s very interested
in trauma and and everything and he said well if you have PTSD then 50/50 chance
it’ll make you great 50/50 chance it’ll make you much much worse so and they
don’t know the yeah and they said they don’t know what it is which which is the
reason why it goes well for some and not well for others so I think you have to be really really you’re playing with
fire for sure absolutely and I mean I’ve got kind of mixed thoughts and feelings
about this the jury’s still open but they’re trying to give this to psychiatrist I guess maybe some people
are getting onto the fact that a lot of the psychiatric drugs have all these downsides but they still want to be able
to Dole out substances and my take would be well know I I don’t need to draw
conclusions I’ll just say that but I will say well is there a difference between a psych a white psychiatrist you
know urbanite their whole life basically with certain types of Medical Training versus like a shaman who is um has been
doing these things for Generations in a certain setting and maybe they have a different understanding than what a more
clinical approach but maybe not I mean maybe you know maybe one’s more helpful and or um not helpful for one individual
than another so there’s I don’t think the drawing conclusions is that helpful but I I do usually advise people that
they really have to do their home they really have to be called to do this and then just do
so much research and then also do tons and tons of vetting on various
practitioners or people that are going to to Dole it out and then um yeah
there’s all kinds of huge things then the integration process afterwards I hear is is just as important if not more
important than actually doing the substances I don’t feel they’re way too gross for me I mean they’re way too
powerful in medicine once you get into a meditation practice I don’t think what they’re really needed you know because
um it’s just there’s so much more subtlety that gross and then you can snap out of it not snap out well that
too sometimes but uh if something happens in meditation where it’s too much overwhelming you could just open
your eyes get up and go about your day usually a lot of times right if it doesn’t get too intense so but if you’re
in a psychedelic State you want it to go off it won’t you know you can’t it keeps going yeah one thing I did know just
about uh smoking pot years ago is that I’m not in control right to to think
that I’m in control of everything that’s one thing it did open me up to is that I don’t have control of my experience 100%
of the time right that there’s other things going on in reality yeah so just
a heads up about psychedelics here Australia is the first place which he’s actually really got psychiatrist in on
that and doing it it’s the first country to legalize it other than Switzer
um and they are doing research about using it as a psychotherapeutic good um it is it’s
only for people who’ve got certain conditions like they’ve had depression for several years they’ve tried
everything else nothing is working and so that it’s last ditch attempt only with certain practitioners only with
certain people who are skilled all that so it is happening here um and I think
it’s very interesting and there was some research about the psychotherapist who said
something afterwards or maybe a month within a month afterwards her psychotherapist said something and it
just sort of made her spun spin out the patient at for I don’t know six months
or a year or two years from that one sentence that the therapist said just off the cuff like that is innocuous but
it took her a year or two to recover from it just shows the sort of sensitivity of it we’re at time and we
didn’t even finish with Lisa dreaming and other well we didn’t the one last thing is just to be a completed Ser the
chakras I’ll just say there’s not chakras in most Buddhism so you can you can go to a free teaching that my um
fiance has about kind of her view of those things but all right Wendy well
this has been fun here we didn’t even really know what the heck we’re going to talk about but uh that we we have such a
good rapport and a decent knowledge base and it’s just fascinating to explore
these things on the fly so thank you again always fun to chat with you always
fun Josh all right bye y’all
Integrating Presence 
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